This week in China financing news:Online education platform backed by Alibaba receives USD 47 million; Animation company Noitom fundraises USD 20 million; and rent installment website receives USD 8.6 million.
Alibaba-backed online education platform Uniquedu receives USD 47 million
On Thursday, Uniquedu.com, an online education platform for providing comprehensive educational training, received RMB 300 million (USD 47 million) in a B-series funding. Qianhe Capital led the funding, followed by Fosun Capital Group and other organizations. The education platform also announced it would separate its B2B and B2C services. Uniquedu’s B2B service will focus on research and development into offline education while its B2C service will use the two websites kaikeba.com and zhaozuor.com to provide online courses and consulting services for students and professionals in the IT industry. The platform aims to cooperate with universities to launch courses on the Internet, finance and computer science. The platform also has a strategic partnership with Alicloud of Alibaba Group.
Part-time job platform branches off 58 Ganji, with USD 40M A- series funding
On Tuesday, 58 Ganji introduced part-time job platform Doumi.com as an independent brand, consolidating its former part-time job services. The new platform received USD 40 million in A-series financing. Investors include 58 Ganji, Banyan Capital, Blue Lake Capital and three individual investors including Wu Xiaoguang. The new platform is an important part of 58 Ganji’s new strategy to maintain its brand. 58 Ganji CEO Yao Jinbo says O2O and sharing economy will be the main driving forces of China’s future economy. Doumi.com combines the advantages of both, says Yao.
Animation company Noitom fundraises USD 20M, evaluated at USD 200 M
On Monday, Popular Chinese animation company Noitom Technology, known for providing the special effects for ‘Game of Thrones’, announced that they have raised USD 20M in B-series funding led by Alpha Animation. After this round of funding, Noitom Technology claims its valuation will exceed USD 200 million. Alpha Animation will become a board member of Noitom. The two companies will cooperate in different areas including virtual technology. Founded in 2012, Noitom is known for its motion capture animation. Dai Ruoli, the CTO of Noitom, says the company may become the biggest provider of motion capture systems in the world by the end of 2015.
Crowdfunding platform Kaistart receives USD 5M investment
On Monday Crowdfunding platform Kaistart received RMB 33 million (USD 5 million) in its A-round financing from six investors including Meridian Capital Group, Jiusui Capital, Yingbaodian Capital and Zhengjiang Wenchuang Group. Prior to this round of financing, it has already received angel investment from three companies, according to 36kr.
Xu Jianjun, the CEO and founder of Kaistart, said the website will support creative projects and ideas. According to the company, the daily PV of the website has exceeded 1.5 million with 400,000 unique visitors, two million registered users and 30,000 paying users.
Campus part-time job platform receives USD 10 million A-series financing
On Monday Part-time job platform Tanlu mainly targeting college students has received USD 10 million in its A-series financing round, with China Growth Capital as the lead investor and its angel investor Bluerun Ventures following. Tanlu is a job platform mainly focused on providing part-time work for university students. Since the platform came online six months ago, it has accumulated half a million users, 1 million transactions, and RMB 20 million in transactions per month.
According to 36kr, 90% of its workers are college students, and 10% are blue collar workers living in cities. Most of the work provided by the platform is selling fast-moving consumer goods, passing out pamphlets, and delivery. Tanlu plans to expand its blue collar worker base in the future and become an employment platform for the main workforce, according to 36kr.
(With contribution from Mochou Lee)